


Don't Be Afraid

by Takada_Saiko



Series: Fallen [34]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Bobo's time in hell, F/M, Nightmares, Prompt Fic, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 22:04:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13645344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Takada_Saiko/pseuds/Takada_Saiko
Summary: Hell follows Bobo into his dreams.Set in the treehouse years and fulfilling an Angst/Fluff prompt from Tumblr: #86: “Don’t be scared, I’m right here.”





	Don't Be Afraid

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GuenVanHelsing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuenVanHelsing/gifts).



 

Most people had an idea of what hell would be like, if they believed in it or not. Robert Svane had believed in it without reservation, but he never could have wrapped his mind around exactly what that meant. The pain didn't stop. There was no relief to the flames or the way that they ripped at him, tearing and clawing away skin and muscle straight down to the bone before he blinked and it began again, somehow reaching another level of pain every time. He could feel it tearing at his very soul, burning away what he had been, and every time that he thought it had burned the last shred away, it found something more. There had to be a limit, even in the afterlife, but each time he thought he reached it his screams had grown a little louder, his throat a little more raw.

There was no escaping it. No corner to hide in or place to seek even momentary relief. When the flames relented, that's when the ghosts approached. They weren't real. There was a part of his mind that knew that. His father, his mother, brother and sister and their descendants. Some he knew personally, others from a distance, but they didn't belong here. That didn't stop their judgement that weighed against him like stones piled on his chest until they crushed him. He couldn't breathe, could barely think, but he could hear them and all the disappointment that they heaped on him. Shovels of dirt to bury him alive. He choked and sputtered and even cried. Everyone had their breaking point, even Bobo Del Rey.

And then there was the one he was certain was an illusion cooked up to cause him the most pain. He knew the footsteps even as he curled into himself on the hard ground, exposed no matter how he turned. They echoed and sounded in the emptiness that had chosen to surround him where he lay in that particular moment, finally coming to a stop next to him. Bobo didn't turn. He knew who stood over him, and it wasn't until a steel-toed boot dug into one of his many wounds, cracked bones shifting at the pressure, that he risked a look around.

The face was familiar, yet not. He knew it well enough to see the subtle differences in the way his lips tugged down and there was something around the eyes that sent a chill through him even as his flesh burned. He tried to focus on the creature that had taken Wyatt Earp's face and spoke with Wyatt Earp's voice, but his vision pulsed in and out, leaving him feeling sick.

"You're exactly where you belong," not-Wyatt old him. "Ain't no mistake. Ain't something you don't deserve. You've earned your place here tenfold."

Fire ripped through him and Bobo's back arched as a scream tore from him, Wyatt's name escaping chapped lips on a breath and it was the last one in his lungs. Any attempt to pull air back in to replace it left him gasping and sputtering.

" _Robert?"_

He twitched and convulsed against it, a pained whimper all he could manage as he heard not-Wyatt detail out each and every sin he had committed. Every life that had been taken directly or indirectly, every Heir that he'd failed to protect. One by one the names were listed off with gruesome details as if Bobo didn't recall each one of Wyatt's descendants that had been strung up after they had been killed. The Seven hadn't been able to make it on the Earp land, but they'd tossed the rope over the entrance and tied Josiah, Edwin, and Ward up. Trophies for them, reminders for him, of a promise he'd never quite been able to keep to himself.

Liar.

Murderer.

Traitor.

The list went on and on, all in Wyatt's voice. All true.

" _Robert_."

Blue eyes met Wyatt's own hazel ones and he found only disappointment there. "You became one of them. Our enemies."

"What would you have had me do?" the Revenant finally choked out. " _What_? What would you have done in my place?"

"I never would have been in your place."

" _Robert, wake up_!"

He jolted hard, eyes snapping open and suddenly he was looking at a wooden roof above him, barely distinguishable in the dim light. The air around him was chilled, not burning. Every muscle in his body was tensed and aching, fingers clawing at bed sheets, and his knees were bent like he had been kicking at an unseen enemy, the quilt he had been sleeping under piled at the end of the bed.

"Robert?"

Blue eyes moved immediately to the source of the question and the world tinged red as a snarl left him, deep and dangerous to warn any enemy exactly what he was capable of.

It hadn't been an enemy though. Instead his sharp gaze landed on Willa Earp who sat on the bed with him, her expression part worried and part wary.

"It's dangerous to wake me up from a nightmare," he grumbled, doing his best to ease his muscles and the red faded from his vision. His back still burned against the sheets, though, and he wondered how he didn't set them on fire.

"It was a bad one," she said quietly.

He huffed. "Even more dangerous then."

Willa loosed a long breath from her nose and he felt her shift in the bed next to him. Slowly, carefully, she eased back down and he realized why he had been sleeping on his back as she returned to her place against his chest. She settled in there, one arm draped across his middle, and he felt her fingers reach for his at his side. "Tell me about it?"

"No."

There was a pause and he knew the word had been too rough. He couldn't help it. He was still reeling from his mind's determination to drag him back to hell all over again.

"It might help."

"It won't."

Her fingers were playing over the rough skin across his knuckles now, the touch gentle and he focused on it. It helped ground him in where they were rather than where he had been. Where he might eventually have to go back to.

"You don't have to do it on your own," she said softly. "I know I can't… take it away anymore than you can take mine away, but it helps. I promise it does."

"What?"

"Not fighting it alone."

Bobo thought of the times when it had been Willa that had woken with her screams. It had taken a while, but eventually she had trusted him enough to share the fears that had been drowning her. Now she was asking him to do the same.

"I was in hell," he managed, and his throat felt dryer than it should have, like a few of those flames had followed him out of the nightmare. He felt her hand flatten against his, her fingers curling under his palm and he cleared his throat. "Wyatt was there. Not Wyatt, but looked like him."

"How do you know it wasn't Wyatt?"

Bobo opened his mouth to respond, but snapped his jaw shut. Because Wyatt wouldn't be in hell. "Just did."

Willa hummed softly and snuggled in closer to him. He could feel her breath on his bare chest and the way her fingers moved against his palm. It was soothing, and for just a moment he dared to let his eyes drift closed again.

Immediately he saw fire and he tensed.

"Robert? Robert, open your eyes."

Bobo did as instructed and found himself in the treehouse once more, Willa half sitting up and leaning over him. She bent down, her long hair ticking skin, and her lips pressed against his for a long moment. "You don't have to be afraid," she whispered against him. "I'm right here." She squeezed his hand before releasing it, bringing it up to his face and she held his gaze. "And you're never going to have to go back. I'm going to make sure of it. You're not alone anymore."

He stared up at her, the words working through him and the truth of it settling in. For the first time in over a century he had someone both willing and capable of standing beside him. Someone that he could trust and that trusted him in return. "I'm not very good at not being alone," he managed, his voice rough and pained and more honest than it could be anywhere else.

It pulled a soft smile from her. "I know. Guess we figure that out together, huh?"

"Guess so." He lifted a hand, long fingers tucking a strand of blonde hair back behind her ear. After hell, he hadn't been sure he would ever be capable of truly loving someone, but there she was and he had been powerless to fight against it. He didn't want to.

Willa eased back down, nestling into the crook of his shoulder and her hand found his. "Get some sleep, Robert. I'm right here."

He felt his own lips tug into a small smile and kissed the top of her head before letting his eyes slip closed again. As he drifted back to sleep, even with hell's flames having been at his heels, she kept him safe and as close to peace as he'd been in over a hundred years.


End file.
